Is there any historical record of a Roman Citizen having a right to
appeal to Caesar, such as Paul of Tarsus claims in Acts 25:11?  If so,
does it mention allowing him a certain number of witnesses to travel
at state expense?  If so, how many such witnesses is the accused
allowed?

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Clarification of Question by herobill-ga on 24 Jun 2005 09:43 PDT

HOW MANY SUCH WITNESSES IS THE ACCUSED ALLOWED?  (I mean, how many are
transported at Roman Expense?)

In terms of Roman law, I'm not sure if the appeal goes to Ceaser but a
citizen DOES have the right to appeal.

"Lex Valeria (maybe in 509 and 449 BC or 300 BC) - it granted every
Roman citizen legal right to appeal against a capital sentence,
defined and confirmed the right of appeal (provocatio)"
http://www.unrv.com/government/index-of-roman-laws.php

In terms of who introduced it..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publius_Valerius_Publicola

Originally it seemed to be important as to protect citizens from
vindictivness of higher class citizens.

Paul very well may have appealed but as to the how it is done, it is
generally unknown and historians have also disagreed on whether Paul
was even a Roman citizen.

Lex Valeria.  Thank you, I'll go look at that when I'm home from
vacation in a couple of days... I'm excited to have a lead.  Still,
500 to 300 BC sounds pretty old, and since my interest is in ACTS,
I've not gone much prior to Julius Caesar; I have studied some of the
transition period from late republic to early empire, so I wonder...

how did the lex valeria (or other laws) apply in the Provinces?

More fundamental to my question:  did the Lex Valeria provide for any
number of witnesses, during a citizen's appeal?  Did it discuss
transporting them (at that date, across Italy, perhaps) at state's
expense?

I'm a high school english teacher, not a skeptical pro historian, but
I take Luke in Acts at face value.  If a centurion was assigned to
carry Paul and two companions across the sea, I see that as evidence
that the state must have paid their transport, and the two men (Luke
himself, and Aristarchus of Thessalonica) must have been under
"subpoena" or the Roman equivalent of it... this is my assumption, and
I'm looking for any verification of it.

My real hunt is this:  I think Titus was on the boat, too.  I think he
'escaped' when they sheltered briefly on Crete, and that's how he got
there before Paul's epistle... but that's all NT history and
speculation... however.  I actually think Titus was the THIRD WITNESS
and that Luke erased his name from ACTS to keep Paul out of trouble
for Titus' escape.  (Titus would have wasted Roman expense by running
away on Crete.)

So that's my theory... and I believe that IF evidence exists about
Rome providing a certain number of witnesses (and transporting them at
state's expense from a province to rome) for citizens who appeal, as
Paul did... I think such evidence could prove or disprove my theory.

All the other NT scholar's theories I've seen about Titus getting to
Crete are way too convoluted.  And I've never heard a decent theory
about Titus being left out of Acts, imho.

OK.  If anyone's interested, that's what I'm after.  Thanks again.

The best way to find out information about any kind of provincial
government is to read imperial correspondence, a great example being
the letters of Pliny the Younger to Trajan. Pliny was governor of
Bithynia-Pontus, and if my memory serves me correctly deals a number
of times with issues of men being sent to and from the emperor for
various different reasons, and the issue of their expenses.

If you can get your hands on 4	A.N. Sherwin-White, The Letters of
Pliny: A Historical and Social Commentary (1966) I think it could be
useful purely on the issue of the expenses